Religion scholar Jesper Svartvik, a former professor of theology and current canon theologian in the Church of Sweden’s diocese of Kartlstad, is of the opinion that the New Testament text that has done the most damage to Christian-Jewish relations is part of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:38, Jesus refers to a punishment described in the Torah’s books of Exodus and Leviticus, saying, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer.”

The passage “is often read to understand Christianity as being the opposite of Judaism, that the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish scriptures can be boiled down to revenge, hatred, and penalty,” says Svartvik, who takes on this topic in Jewish Foundations of the New Testament: Addressing the Roots of Antisemitism (Paulist Press, Feb. 2025).

In the book, he examines and reinterprets this and 29 other texts that he says “are most often cited when Christians speak detrimentally about Jews, the Jewish scriptures, and the Jewish tradition.” These examples, he adds, show how “Judaism is so often presented as theological contrast instead of historical context.”

Svartvik, 58, was born in Gothenburg, Sweden, where youth group conversations about what he calls “big topics like the meaning of life” led him to study religion and pursue ordination in the Lutheran church. His academic career has spanned the globe, including years studying and teaching at Lund University in Sweden, the Swedish Theological Institute in Jerusalem, and at Hebrew University.

He recalls the “Jewish hospitality” he experienced in Jerusalem, when hardly a Sabbath went by without a dinner invitation including him, his colleagues, and students. These encounters with what he calls “vibrant Judaism” deepened his commitment to an open and intellectually honest Christian understanding of the religion. After his time in Israel, he held a 2020-2021 visiting position at Boston College’s Center for Christian-Jewish Learning, where he worked on the book.

“The legacy of Christian teaching of contempt” for Jews, he says, “must be acknowledged and addressed.” Part of repairing that harm, he says, is for Christianity to be “expressed and articulated in a way that Jews would recognize themselves when Judaism is presented.”

In particular, Svartvik is deeply troubled by the Christian concept of “supersessionism,” the idea that Christianity replaces, supplants, and supersedes Judaism because Jesus was the fulfillment of Jewish prophecies about the messiah. This reading of Christian scripture has led to antisemitic violence around false ideas, such as holding Jews responsible for the death of Jesus.

Instead, he says, “I suggest that Christians read the Jewish scriptures with awe, gratitude, and curiosity.” When they do, he says, Christians will deepen their understanding of “the veritable treasure” the Jewish scriptures offer to their faith.

Svartvik’s book takes a unique approach to Christian scripture at a time when rising antisemitism raises the stakes for improved Christian-Jewish relations, according to Trace Murphy, editor-at-large for Paulist Press. Promoting “a rereading of the New Testament that fosters respect for Judaism” is “vital,” Murphy says, to helping “avoid anti-Jewish readings of the New Testament, historically tied to harmful stereotypes and antisemitism.”

A favorite poem of Svartvik’s is Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” Its famous final lines—“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference”—inform his commitment to dismantling anti-Jewish readings of the New Testament. The nonsupersessionist way of interpreting the Christian faith, he says, “is certainly the less traveled path in history.”

Holly Lebowitz Rossi is a freelance writer and coauthor of The Yoga Effect: A Proven Program for Depression and Anxiety.